


A Human Reaction

by disdainfullady



Category: Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, It does however contain spoilers for all four seasons of Farscape, and Peacekeeper wars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disdainfullady/pseuds/disdainfullady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan and Veronica watch Farscape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Human Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is so self-indulgent, but what can I say, it was terribly fun to write. The fic idea originated when I read [](http://mutinousmuse.livejournal.com/profile)[mutinousmuse](http://mutinousmuse.livejournal.com/)’s gorgeous entry to the [](http://loveathons.livejournal.com/profile)[loveathons](http://loveathons.livejournal.com/) “Gift” challenge: [Worm’s Meat](http://community.livejournal.com/fic_from_mars/37228.html). I was sobbing (cause seriously, that fic is amazing and sad) and I declared that my fic would simply be “Logan gives Veronica Farscape. They have the sex. Everyone is happy. The end.” And then I decided that that would actually be really cool. Major props to the awesome [](http://strippedpink.livejournal.com/profile)[strippedpink](http://strippedpink.livejournal.com/) for her wonderful beta work.

  


She surveyed the set of boxes suspiciously, her giddiness of the moment before all but gone as she turned to him, her expression trying for stern although she couldn’t keep the amusement out of her eyes.

“Why do I get the feeling that this present is more for you than for me?”

They were sprawled on the floor of the living room, the wrapping paper she’d torn off in a less than graceful frenzy providing a colorful counterpoint to the blandly expensive carpeting.

He pulled slightly away from her, his expression all wounded innocence, and she would almost believe that she’d really hurt him if she hadn’t seen him pull this act before.

“You’re saying you don’t like it?”

She looked back at the brightly colored boxes on the floor. “Logan… face it, you wanted me to have these so you could enjoy them.”

“Well,” he admitted, pulling her into a comfortable embrace, “it did occur to me that you might want company when you busted them out.”

“Uh-huh.” His lips were doing fascinating things on the back of her neck and the self-serving nature of his gift seemed less important than that he continue exactly what he was doing just then. “I suppose, that it isn’t… that bad. Although you know it’s really not my sort of thing.”

“Just give it a chance,” he murmured, as his hands began their subtle exploration beneath her shirt. “I promise you’ll like _Farscape_.”

***

“I hope you realize that I have no idea what’s going on.”

She sat bolt upright in her corner of the couch, her arms folded across her chest in the manner of a petulant five year old.

“Maybe if you stopped talking through all the dialogue you’d have a better idea,” he muttered – he was still sulking about his banishment to the chair for being too distracting, and she wanted to laugh about the wonderful bonding experience this was proving to be.

“I’m talking through the dialogue? You’re the one who keeps giggling at every turn and then won’t explain why.”

“Because you wouldn’t get it yet!”

She rolled her eyes and tried to return her attention to the screen.

“I can’t believe I’m watching Muppets in _space_.”

***

“I like the little yellow things.”

He’d actually been allowed on the couch this time, on the clear understanding that the bowl of popcorn was hers and hers alone and any attempt to secure some for himself would result in loss of limb.

He’d accepted the mandate cheerfully and had sprawled across the couch, settling his head on her lap, and now he twisted up to look at her.

“The DRDs?”

“The little robots – whatever they’re called. They’re cute.”

“Figures.” He sounded amused more than anything and she frowned at him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean the crew is being replicated several times over, Aeryn’s _life_ is in danger, and all you can see fit to comment on is the cute robots.” His hand rubbed affectionately over her denim-clad thigh, soothing away the potential slight, and she found herself grinning instead of glaring at him.

She still wasn’t planning on letting him off the hook, but Aeryn was struggling and it was hard to focus on anything but the screen.

***

“She’s going to die isn’t she?” She’d been leaning against him on the couch but she wasn’t relaxed any more, and she turned to look at him accusingly.

He regarded her with mild confusion, “Who’s going to die?”

“Gilina. She kissed John, and John and Aeryn are obviously this show’s Luke and Lorelai, so she’s doomed.”

“I hope you realize that sentence made no sense to me,” he murmured, arching his back with a catlike grace as he stretched and then pulled her back against him.

“Just tell me if she’s going to die.” She studied his face intently, looking for any indication in his expression, but he just smirked at her.

“Guess you’ll have to keep watching.”

***

“Okay, new girl has to go.”

“Chiana?” He frowned up at her from his position on the floor. “Chiana’s awesome.”

“Oh please, like it’s not perfectly obvious why you’re a fan of Miss Airbrushed Cleavage.”

“I’m not going to deny that it’s a plus, but I assure you the character rules too.”

“I’m sure.”

“Besides,” he shifted back towards the couch, settling his head against her knees and tilting his face to look up at her. “If I was just looking for the boobs, I’d be watching Charmed.”

She rolled her eyes even as her fingers made their way to his hair, threading lightly through the short strands on the back on his neck.

“Logan, you do still watch Charmed.”

“Yeah, but only when I’m looking for the boobs. Pay attention, Mars.”

***

“What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like, Veronica? I’m turning off the TV.”

He was laughing at the alarm in her voice, and she really needed him to come closer so she could hit him.

“We can’t stop there – are you kidding me?”

“I am not the one who instituted the ‘no more than two episodes a night’ rule,” he reminded her smugly as he carefully kept the channel changer out of her reach lest she make a lunge for it.

“Exception for season finales with cliffhangers of doom,” she insisted, glaring at him.

“You just made that rule up.”

Her eyes narrowed as she regarded him and her words were clipped:

“Logan. Next Disk. Now.”

He rolled his eyes and heaved himself off the couch.

“Anyone would think you liked this show or something.”

***

“Is this why you demanded we have pizza and margarita shooters that time?”

“No, of course not. I just wanted to try it.”

His voice was amused, like he was the one mocking her, but he wouldn’t look her in the eye and the tips of his ears were red.

“It’s not like you had any anyway,” he muttered.

He was a bit adorable like this she decided, vulnerable almost but not in the way that made her hurt to watch it, and she elected not to tease him too terribly about it tonight. She’d definitely be storing it for future use though.

She settled for simply leaning her head back against the couch, her eyes tracing the crack by the ceiling that she swore was getting bigger every week.

“I think I agree with John. Nobody has pizza with margaritas.”

***

“I don’t know how they do it.”

“Do what?” He’d been quiet tonight, and somewhat prickly, and she relished his return to the land of the verbal even if it was only two words.

“Give us the craziest most hysterical episodes one week and then break our hearts a week later. It shouldn’t be possible.”

He didn’t say anything. His eyes were still on the screen and he tensed as they moved into another flashback.

It wasn’t till Crais burst in and Velorek was arrested that she understood why, and suddenly she didn’t know where to look.

It wasn’t the same. She knew it wasn’t the same. But Logan was staring at his hands and not looking at her and she suddenly hurt way too much as she went into a flashback of her own – their conversation by their lockers, his call from the sheriff’s office, the look on his face when he confronted her on the beach.

“Logan, I-”

“She was just doing what she was trained to do, right?” His voice was barely a whisper.

They watched the rest of the episode in silence.

***

She was almost afraid to keep watching. Sci-fi was supposed to be escapist. It was supposed to be happy cheesy fun with improbable storylines and outlandish hairstyles.

It wasn’t supposed to make her boyfriend hurt.

But when she had idly remarked that Chiana was a lot like Lilly – because looking for parallels was fun, because Logan liked Chiana, because it was impossible for her not to offer a running commentary on every episode – he’d gone still, that restless energy that made it incapable for him to sit in the same position for more than a minute suddenly gone.

He’d curled his fingers tightly into the flesh of her thigh while he muttered that she didn’t know the half of it.

It wasn’t until they’d finished the season and seen the setup of the D’Argo/Chiana/Jothee triangle that his reaction started making sense and then she hated herself for inadvertently reminding him, hated the show for daring to have such a setup, hated their lives for having plots that shouldn’t be seen outside of fiction.

It was good, it was undoubtedly good, but it hurt too much. When they finished Suns and Lovers she suggested they take a break for a while and spent the next three weekends working through episodes of Red Dwarf, which, while insane, at least didn’t make Logan cry.

***

So, of course, when they came back to it, she was the one to cry, and she found herself almost resenting the show for making her care so much.

“I can’t believe they did that.”

Logan hadn’t warned her she’d need tissues like he had at the end of season two. Maybe because she’d never really warmed to Zhaan the way she had Aeryn. Maybe because despite feeling it more she hadn’t managed to cry for Aeryn, because she knew she wasn’t really gone.

But she was a blubbering mess and God was that embarrassing. Logan said something about Virginia Hey choosing to leave and sure, she understood why an actress might not want to have to keep her head shaved for such a long time, but that didn’t shake her from the absolute certainty that it wasn’t fair.

“Did they have to kill her?” she demanded when she’d recovered.

“You can’t bring a major character back and not have it be a cheat unless you lose someone else.”

“I don’t care if it’s a cheat. I’m _fine_ with a cheat.”

He’d laughed at her, like she wasn’t being perfectly serious, and she tensed.

He wrapped his arms around her, dragging his thumb carelessly across her skin as his expression sobered.

“I’m sorry, really, it’s just that this was pretty minor for this season.”

“You’re telling me it gets worse?”

“You might want to bulk order the Kleenex.”

*****

“Remind me why Jool’s here again?”

Logan laughed and she found herself frowning around her slice of pizza. “You mean she needs another reason than to annoy you personally?”

He continued before she could finish chewing.

“Plotwise, she takes the scientific side of Zhaan’s skill set. Characterwise she plays the annoying brat now that they’ve matured Chiana some.”

“Why would they need an annoying brat when they’ve got Rygel?”

“A hit. A very palpable hit.”

She grinned and, putting on a dreamy accent, told him, “I just love it when you quote Shakespeare at me.” She brought her hand dramatically to her forehead.

“C’mere you.” He grabbed her wrist, tugging her off balance so that she collapsed on top of him – a mess of limbs and laughter - his other hand coming up to steady her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She managed to gasp out, and she felt the answering rumble of his laughter against her cheek, before he pulled her up to him, into a kiss that tried to be intense but kept being interrupted by the giggles they now couldn’t seem to stop.

“I would think it was obvious,” he murmured when he caught his breath as he ran his hand under her shirt over the smooth lines of her back.

“Uh-uh, none of that, we’ve got an episode to finish.”

“You know, I’ve heard of this remarkable invention called the pause button.”

“Logan.”

“Veronica.”

His voice was sulky even as he released her and she pulled herself into a sitting position, and she threw one of the throw pillows at him before reaching over to snag the last piece of pizza.

“Now, where were we?”

*****

“You know,” she murmured breathily, her attention divided between the leather clad couple on the screen and the entirely on the hand that was brushing up her right thigh, “this is all really unfair to the other John.”

“Oh?” Logan whispered. She shivered at his breath against the back of her neck.

“I mean, he’s off having wacky adventures with D’Argo while this John gets to finally hook up with Aeryn?”

“I see your point,” Logan admitted, leaning around to her in a kiss that left her breathless. “But I think John might think having a threesome with himself was a little weird.”

She opened her mouth to scold him but at that point he pressed down hard through her jeans, and it became a gasp instead.

“Logan, the show” she reminded, even as the effort of his hand had her throwing her head back against his chest and her world narrowed to his hands and lips, moving confidently over her. She couldn’t even see the screen anymore.

“We can come back to it,” he promised, his teeth lightly grazing her ear.

“Besides,” he continued, the smirk on his face somehow audible, “everybody else was doing it.

*****

“No.”

“Veronica.”

“I don’t – I won’t accept it.”

She was actually trembling and he pulled his arms more tightly around her as he tried to calm her down.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, his voice soft and easy despite the sheen of tears in his own eyes that had made her warm to him as few thing ever had. She felt herself getting sentimental and she pulled away slightly.

“This is your fault.”

The words were muttered, but they were clear enough and she felt him tense involuntarily. She should feel guilty about that.

She continued on, her voice high and upset and she wasn’t crying, quite, but she hurt with trying not to. “You were the one who made me watch this show. I told you it wasn’t my thing. I told you.”

He brought his hand gently to her cheek, dropping kisses on her temple even as he reached for the channel changer to cue the next episode.

She froze because she knew if she saw another episode she would cry for real, and it wouldn’t be the kind that went away fast. The words tumbled out of her mouth tripping over each other as she tried to explain, but he just moved pulled her to him.

“You need to see this one, okay? It’ll help.”

“Do they go back in time and save him?”

He grinned and she was responding despite herself. “Not exactly.”

“Then it won’t help.”

She scowled through the first few minutes, but then John animated Harvey, and she turned to look at him in disbelief.

“Cartoons? After all that they’re giving us cartoons?”

“I told you it would help.”

*****

“So the writers clearly enjoy torturing me.”

“Clearly.” He grinned.

She popped up from the cushions to change disks, glaring at the DVD player when it took too long to open.

Curling back into her corner of the couch, she continued. “John and Aeryn shouldn’t be allowed to split up again. It’s against the rules.”

She hated how girly she got about this show. She’d thought she had enough cynicism to be able to consider a show’s manipulations objectively.

All she’d been able to come up with was that _objectively speaking_ , John and Aeryn were destined for each other.

“Your rules get more and more complicated every episode,” he observed.

“They shouldn’t!”

“Okay.”

“Are you humoring me?”

Logan smirked. “Of course not.”

*****

“Have I mentioned how much I love Scorpius? Because I do.”  
  
“For the last time, I will not dress up in a leather fetish suit to help you live out your depraved fantasy.”

She tilted her head to study him, an innocent smile playing across her face.

“But I thought you _liked_ leather.” She pitched her voice just on the edge between sweet and annoying and he threw a pillow at her.

“Scorpius groupie.”

“You’ve found me out,” she breathed as she settled herself against him, tucking her head into the crook of his arm. “Wait. Does this mean I have to dye my hair an unnatural color?”

“You’d better not,” he murmured, his fingers twisting through the sleek strands, gently massaging the scalp beneath.

“But then the other groupies won’t let me in the club,” she countered, drowsily.

“Good.” He was silent a minute and she almost thought he was going to leave it at that, but his inner obsessive fan won out and he continued. “Anyway, one of his nurses was blond. And I don’t think Sikozu dyes her hair.”

“There’s no way her hair is like that naturally. No frigging way.”

“I hate to bring up the obvious, but she _is_ an alien.”

“And therefore is immune to the allure of Lady Clairol? I don’t think so.”

*****

“Oh nice.”

“Hmmm?”

“I like that they pulled in the 9/11 reference."

He was silent, but she felt the urge to further editorialize. "Because as much as they have no understanding of John’s perspective, I’m glad they pointed out that he really can’t get theirs. He’s missed all this huge stuff and he just doesn’t get where they’re coming from because this isn’t the Earth he knew. And of course that’s another way of completely isolating him and slamming home the whole “you can never go back” message.”

“Mmmmm.” His voice was barely audible and even as she watched his eyes were drifting shut.

“Logan.” A barely voiced ‘yeah’ in response. “Are you falling asleep on me?”

“Course not.” He paused too long and she could hear a definite yawn. “You’re on _me_.”

“Logan.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just so lulled by your dulcet tones; I can’t help it.”

“Oh shut up and go to sleep.”

*****

She could barely watch the screen. Logan had warned her about this one, but it turned out that seeing Aeryn tortured was a very different creature than seeing John tortured.

It hurt. A deep ache that was actually physical.

Logan’s arm was round her shoulders and she leaned her head against him, relishing the physical comfort of his presence.

Comfort.

When had they gotten to comfort? How had she missed that?

Aeryn screamed and repeated her claim not to know who the father was and Veronica pressed more firmly against him.

For once she had nothing to say about an episode.

*****

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She looked ready to throw something at the television.

He raised his eyebrows. “Yes, this is all an elaborate prank on my part.”

“That’s how they ended it? That’s how they left the fourth season? John and Aeryn and.... and they left in the ‘To Be Continued’?” She was practically stuttering.

“Ah yes. The grand ‘Fuck You’ to the Sci Fi Channel. These are my kind of show runners.”

She glared at him and he shrugged and pointed out that at least she knew it wasn’t the end. Unlike the people who actually watched the show when it first aired.

She rolled her eyes and went to grab the next disk, turning back to him to ask, “So how does the miniseries end? They get turned back into primordial ooze?”

“Have you been looking at spoilers again?”

*****

“God.”

She was aware that she was staring at the screen, but she couldn’t help it. She hoped her mouth wasn’t open.

“Yes?”

And she was back. She glared at Logan. “Shut up.”

“Wow. Is this how you usually pray?”

She leaned over to smack him on the chest before returning her attention to more important matters.

“That was just…”

“I know.”

“Finally.”

“I know.”

“But, D’Argo!”

“I know.”

“God.”

*****

“So, was I right?”

His tone was wheedling and she shook her head in exasperation.

“I’ve already told you I like the show. I think that’s pretty obvious.”

“But you haven’t said I was _right_. There’s a distinction, you know.” He was preparing to go into full on pout mode and she heaved a sigh.

‘Fine, you were right. Happy?”

“Sigh. Those three little words every man longs to hear.”

“Do you want to get hit?”

He grinned and leaned back, putting his feet up on the coffee table.

“Now to get you started on Dr. Who.”


End file.
